Run Your Home Like A Business: No Means NO
A lot of parents fall into the mistake of over-explaining things thoroughly to their kids for them to understand the rules fully. Doing this might be good at some point, but explaining the rules more than once to your child as well as every decision that you make could lead to serious problems. If you let your child understand every reason and every little decision that you make, you might turn everything upside down – you become the one asking for their approval.
This could lead you into a very dangerous cycle of over-explaining every little thing to your kids. At work, did you hear your boss over-explain his decision about not allowing employees sleep while on duty? Have you heard about a CEO sitting beside the janitor, explaining the reason why he needs the office clean at all times? That is why most experts recommend that if you have already given your child an explanation once, repeating everything for the second time is not necessary.
Think about your relationship with your kid, have you been frequently explaining your rules and your reasons every time you get into an argument? If you have, then most likely you are frequently talking to your child as well every time he challenges your authority. In the process, you become the one defending your rules, in your own home.
If allowed to continue, this habit could continue until your child gets older. Then you will find yourself compromising some more to your child, even to the point of changing the rules in favor of your kid every time he questions your behavior. Remember, when you over-elaborate yourself to your child, you are actually training him NOT to follow you.
Always be firm; when you tell your child, “No, we will buy that on your birthday” at the toy store, and he keeps insisting that you should buy it now, and you give in after a while buying him the toy eventually, you just trained your child not to value your decision.
Eventually giving in to your child’s whim even when you said no is just like giving him the power and the permission to break your rules anytime he wants, in the future and of course, that is the last thing that you want.
When you say “no’ to your kids, they will think that you are setting them up to challenge your authority, the consequence you set, or the responsibilities that they have. When you keep explaining yourself to your child and end up doing what he wants, you are letting your child be in authority without even knowing it.
That is why it is important that you show your child that he is bound to certain limits. These limits could be anything from establishing a curfew to saying “No phone calls by 8 o’clock”. When you set these rules without over-explaining yourself, in effect, your child experiences those limits as being told “no.
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